“If you have a recording of what he said, then I can help, or even some of the words, and I can give you some hint.”
I looked at Edward.
“We don’t have anything we can let you listen to, Phoebe; I’m sorry.” It was neatly done, not that we didn’t have a recording but that we couldn’t let her listen to it. I’d have just told her we didn’t have one, which is why I’d let Edward answer.
She looked away from all of us and spoke in a voice that was shaky. “Is it that awful?”
Shit. But Edward moved in smoothly, even touching her hand. “It’s not that, Phoebe. It’s just that it’s an ongoing investigation, and we have to be cautious what information we let out.”
She looked at him from inches away. “You think someone in my coven could be involved?”
“Do you?” he asked, in a voice that was not the least surprised, as if to say, yes, we had suspected it, but we’d let her tell us the truth. I’d have sounded surprised and spooked her.
She looked into his eyes from inches away, and his hand on hers was suddenly more important. I felt the prickle of energy, and knew it had nothing to do with wereanimals or vampires.
He smiled, and pulled back his hand. “Trying to psychically read a police officer without permission is illegal, Phoebe.”
“I need to know more than you’re telling me to answer your questions.”
“How can you be sure of that?” he asked, with a smile.
She smiled and put her teacup on the coffee table beside the rest. “I’m psychic, remember. I have information that you need, but I don’t know what it is. I only know that if you ask the right question, I’ll tell you something important.”
I jumped in, “You know psychically.”
“Yes.”
I turned to the men with me and tried to explain. “Most psychic ability is pretty vague. Phoebe knows she has information that will be important, but there’s a question we need to ask to spark that knowledge in her.”
“And she knows this, how?” Bernardo asked.
I shrugged. “She couldn’t tell you how, and I couldn’t either. I’ve just worked with enough psychics to know that this is as good as the explanation gets sometimes.”
Olaf scowled. “That is not an explanation.”
I shrugged again. “The best we’ve got.” I turned back to the priestess. “Let’s go back to Marshal Forrester’s question. Could anyone in your coven be involved?”
She shook her head. “No.” It was a very firm no.
I tried again. “Could anyone here in the magical community be involved?”
“How can I answer that? I don’t know what spells were used, or why you believe that Randy was trying to say something. Of course, there are bad people in every community, but without more information, I can’t tell you whose talents this could have been.” She sounded impatient, and I guess I couldn’t blame her.
I looked at Edward.
“Do you have a priest’s seal of the confessional?”
She smiled. “Yes, the Supreme Court upheld that we are truly priests, so what you tell me is covered under the law.”
He looked at Michael’s looming figure. “Is he a priest?”
“We are all priests and priestesses if we are called by Goddess,” she said. It was a very priestess answer.
I answered for her. “He’s her black dog.”
Both Phoebe and Michael looked at me, as if I’d done something interesting. “They come here pretending not to know anything about us, but they’ve checked us out. They’re lying.”
“Now, Michael, you should know not to jump to conclusions.” She turned those gentle brown eyes to me. “Have you checked us out?”
I shook my head. “I swear to you that other than finding out you are Randy Sherman’s priestess, no.”
“Then how did you know Michael was not my priest?”
I licked my lips and thought about it. How had I known? “There’s a bond between most of the priests and priestesses I’ve met. Either they are a couple, or the magical working as a team just forms a bond. There’s no feel of that between you and him. Also, he just screams muscle. The only job in a coven that is all about muscle, either spiritual or physical, is the black dog.”
“Most covens don’t have them anymore,” she said.
I shrugged. “My mentor is into the history of her craft.”
“I see the cross, but is it your sign of faith, or merely what the police make you wear?”
“I’m Christian,” I said.
She smiled, and it was a little too knowledgeble. “But you find some precepts of the Church limiting.”
I fought not to squirm. “I find the Church’s attitude toward my own flavor of psychic ability limiting, yes.”
“And what is your flavor?”
I started to answer, but Edward made a motion and I stopped. “It doesn’t matter what Marshal Blake’s gifts are.”
I didn’t know why Edward didn’t want me to share with her, but I trusted his judgment.
Phoebe looked from one to the other of us. “You are very much a partnership.”
“We’ve worked together for years,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s more than that.” She shook her head as if shaking the thought away. Then she looked back at me, and the eyes were no longer gentle. “Ask your questions, Marshal Blake.”
“If Michael leaves the room, then we’ll talk more freely,” Edward said.
“I will not leave you with them,” the big man said.
“They are policemen, like Randy was.”
“They have badges,” he said, “but they are not policemen like Randy.”
“Does my grief make me blind?” she asked him.
His face softened. “I think, it does, my priestess.”
“Then tell me what you see, Michael.”
He turned dark eyes on us. He pointed at Olaf. “That one’s aura is dark, stained by violence and evil things. If you could not feel him at your door, then you are head-blind with grief, Phoebe.”
“Then be my eyes, Michael,” she said.
He turned to Bernardo. “I don’t see any harm in that one, though I wouldn’t trust him with my sister.”
She smiled. “Handsome men are seldom trustworthy with people’s sisters.”
He skipped me and went to Edward next. “That one’s aura is dark, too, but dark the way Randy’s was dark. Dark the way some people that have seen combat are dark. I would not want him at my back, but he means no harm here.”
I have to admit that my pulse was up. Michael looked at me, and I fought not to look down but to meet those too-perceptive eyes.
“She is a problem. She is shielding, very tightly. I cannot read much past those shields. But she is powerful, and there is a feel of death to her. I don’t know if she brings death, or if death follows her, but it’s there, like a scent.”
“Destiny lies heavy on some,” Phoebe said.
He shook his head. “It’s not that.” He stared at me, and I felt him pushing at my shields. After what had happened with Sanchez, I did not want my shields down again.
“Stop pushing at my shields, Michael, or we’re going to have words.”
“Sorry,” and he looked embarrassed, “but I don’t find many who aren’t Wiccan who can shield from me.”
“I’ve been trained by the best,” I said.
He glanced at the men with me. “Not by them.”
“Never said I learned psychic shielding from the other cops.”
“They aren’t cops; there’s something unfinished, or wilder, about you all. The only other cop I’ve met who felt close to you was one who had been undercover so long he’d almost become one of the bad guys. He got out, he got the job done, but it changed him. It made him less cop and more criminal.”
“You know what they say,” I said, “one of the things that makes us good at getting bad guys is that we can think like one.”
“Most cops can, but there’s a big difference between thinking like one and being one.” He studied us all. “The badges are real, but it’s like putting a leash on a tiger. It never stops being a tiger.”